Jack the Hero
by Free Dan Phantom
Summary: My Dad wrote this.When Danny gets kidnapped and Maddie injured it's up to Jack.Can Danny be saved by his bubbleheaded father or is it the end for Danny?R


_The Challenge:_

_It is a convention in all children's cartoons that parents are clueless idiots and father are extremely clueless. Whether you're talking about the Simpsons, Family Guy, or Fairly Odd Parents. Parents are a joke, and fathers are even more of a joke. As a father I resemble that remark. But when you look at all the cool gear that the Fenton's have you have to admit that Jack Fenton has something on the ball. So the challenge was this: to write a Danny Phantom story in which Danny's father does something good, something heroic, but without breaking character. Below is my solution to this challenge._

_- - Sarah's Dad_

Jack the Hero

by Sarah's Dad.

Jasmine Fenton was nibbling on a tuna salad sandwich and accessing her E-mail in the school cafeteria when two shadows loomed over her. Jazz was a sixteen year Junior in High School. She had long, straight red hair pulled back off her face with a head band. Her clothes were very "sensible" suggesting an outlook much older than her age.

She looked up and saw Sam and Tucker, her brother's best friends slid into seats across from her. They didn't look happy.

"Danny's in trouble," Tucker began. He was a freshman, like her brother, addicted to video games and electronic gear, at the head of his class. Jasmine had known Tucker for so long that she rarely noticed that he was black.

"We think he's been kidnaped by Skulker." Sam added. Sam was a slender girl Danny's age, all dressed up in black, with mascara troweled around her eyes and Doc Martin's on her feet. Her goth facade masked a truly funny girl.

Idly, Jasmine keyed open a file on her laptop. A small drawing of a ghost dressed in safari gear and wearing numerous belts, guns and pouches topped the screen. "Skulker" read the heading beside the picture. Below ran a description of the ghost's powers, habits and run-ins with Jasmine's brother's secret identity, Danny Phantom. Kidnaping did not seem like something he would do.

Killing the page before anyone might see it, Jas turned to hr brother's friends and asked, "Why come to me?"

"We saw Skulker carry Danny through a portal into the Ghost Zone," Tucker replied.. "I've got our PDA's linked so I can sort of track him. The readings are faint like he's far away but the readings are the same in whatever direction I point it, like he's all around us. That says Ghost Zone to me."

He handed Jazz his Personal Digital Assistant. The screen was showing a series of bars like a cellphone, and clearly the signal was very weak. She gave it back.

"You're his friends. What can I do? Don't you always run off and help him? You know he hates it when it seems like I'm interfering in his life."

"He's your brother. Don't you care at all about..." Sam began but Tucker interrupted.

"Fenton DNA. We need you to get us into the lab," he said.

"But you're in there all the time?"

"Yeah," Sam answered. "Danny lets us in. Without him we're locked out."

"The Fenton Biometric Security System. Way cool, but pretty much impenetrable if you're not a Fenton."

Jasmine sighed. "Another one of Dad's well intended disasters." She started gathering up her things. "If I let you in the lab can you take it from there?" she asked. "Need anything out of the Weapons Vault?"

"You have a Weapons Vault?" Tucker exclaimed.

"Keep it down," Jazz insisted. "The last thing I need is for people to think my family is crazier than they already think it is."

It was a short walk from Casper High School to the Fenton Works. The latter was a small brownstone building with an amazing assortment of extensions to its upper floors. Between the numerous radar antenna, duraluminum tanks, pipes and siding. The top of the Fenton Works resembled a sci-fi combat ops center.

As they walked Tucker filled Jasmine in on what happened.

It had started earlier in Mr. Lancer's English class when they had seen Skulker fly past the window chasing after some poor unfortunate ghost. Danny had made up an excuse to leave the room, changed to a ghost and gone after Skulker. Sam and Tucker had been shocked when a little later Skulker again flew past the window, seemingly fleeing from Danny. But as Skulker flew past the school's flagpole a ghost net suddenly erupted from package concealed in its top engulfing Danny in its meshes. Skulker had flown back, tied up Danny then seemed to pause in front of the window to gloat before tearing a hole leading to the Ghost Zone. As soon as class as over they had run after Jazz.

"I wish we could talk to Mom about this." Jas sighed.

"And tell the city's number one ghost hunter her son's a ghost." Sam reminded her.

"Half-Ghost" Tucker corrected.

"Whatever," Sam snapped. "Either way she's more likely to shoot first and ask questions later."

"Dad, yes. But Mom's not like that. I'm sure she would listen if we explained." Jazz suggested.

"It's not our secret to give away," Sam loyally replied.

"He can't go on forever hiding like this."

"Sure he can," Tucker interrupted. "It worked for Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne. Why can't it work for Danny Fenton?"

"Because those were comic book characters," Sam retorted angrily.

It was with relief that Jasmine lead them into the brownstone and down to the lab. She slapped her palm on the palm-print reader without conscious thought.

The ghost lab was large, open, with a hexagonal portal on the far wall. A wheelless enclosed steel vehicle rested on a stand near the portal. An overhead crane was positioned to move it to the portal when needed. Tucker ran across the room and hopped into the Specter Speeder, flipping on switches even as he strapped himself into the cockpit seat.

Suddenly his face sagged. "Hey," he called out, "what's the deal with the Specter Speeder? It's dead."

"No!" Jas exclaimed as she poked her head into the vehicle. "How are we going to rescue Danny if the ... wait here's a note. "Maddie," it read. "Don't use the Specter Speeder. I had to borrow a few parts for the enhanced Specter Deflecter. - - Jack. PS - have Danny rebuilt the auxiliary engine"

"Oh great. What are we going to do now."

"Do what, sugarpop?" a voice asked, "And why aren't you at school?"

"Dad?"

"Mr. Fenton?"

"Jazz... school day... still waiting for an answer..."

"Is that Sam and Tuck hiding in the Speeder. They know they're too young to drive," a women spoke up behind Jack Fenton. Jack Fenton, being an unsually large man, tended to hide people behind him.

"Ah, Mom." Jazz began, "I can explain...My God! What happened to you?"

"Language, young lady," Mrs Fenton corrected. As she came around her husband the three kids could see her head wrapped in bandages and one arm in a sling. She was wearing a skin-tight jumpsuit that revealed that neither time nor two children had had any effect on her figure, limping though she was at the moment.

She settled down in a chair at a conference table with a sigh. "Your father has quite a backhand," she said as if that explained everything.

"And..." Jazz suggested.

"She were playing Tennis with the Hawkins's, mixed doubles. Mrs. Hawkins hit a high lob to center court. I went back..."

"And I came up," Mrs Fenton added. "I should have called off your father because I had the better shot at it..."

"...but I could have slammed it into the corner like that!" Jack continued.

"Unfortunately, the only thing that got slammed was me." Mrs. Fenton finished.

"Dad! Of all the stupid, inconsiderate, oafish things you've done, how could you do this to Mom! Some days you just make me embarrassed to be a Fenton"

Sam and Tucker looked at each other, then looked for a hole to crawl into. They had never seen Danny's sister so worked up about anything.

"Now, Jazz, your mother knows just how bad I feel about the whole thing. It cuts me up deep inside...But I love your mother with a love of a thousand quasars..."

"Dad, you are a menace to be around." Jazz hissed.

"Jazz," her mother spoke up. "That will be enough of that. Your father has apologized and I've accepted his apology. That's the end of the matter. But you, young lady, have not explained why you and Danny's two friends are cutting classes. And where is Danny?"

In the silence that followed Sam spoke up. "We think he was kidnaped by a ghost."

"A Ghost!" Jack Fenton shouted, suddenly wielding a medium size ghost cannon. "Where is it? I'll tear it's body to atoms, then the atoms to... whatever it is atoms are torn into?

"Quarks, dear." Maddie Fenton supplied. "How do you know all this?" she asked.

So Sam and Tucker recounted their story with Jazz adding her few bits. The three children took care not to let on that Danny Fenton was also Danny Phantom. It made for some tricky storytelling.

Jack Fenton was astonished. "You mean the Fenton Portal works?"

"Yeah," Sam answered, "You just forgot to turn it on the first time..."

"Now Dear, you know very well the portal works. Where do you think you're fishing at when you're using the Fenton fisher?" Mrs. Fenton added.

"And you took the Specter Speeder into the Ghost Zone without permission?" Jack continued.

"Yeah, but Danny was driving," Tucker lied. As a half-ghost Danny had never needed transportation within the Ghost Zone.

"What else has been going on that I don't know about?" Jack demanded.

"Nothing, nothing at all," Sam stammered, her face ablaze with crimson.

"Nothing, huh?" Jack asked suspiciously.

"No hanky-panky? No moonlight cruises in the Specter Speeder. Kisses under the mistletoe?"

"No!" Sam protested. "We've never done anything like that!"

"Really?" Jack looked disappointed. "I guess I'm going to have to have 'the talk' with Danny when we get him back."

Jasmine saw Sam's acute embarrassment and decided to help. "Shouldn't we be trying to get Danny back?" She asked, "instead of arguing over his pathetic love life?"

"Yes! Danny." Jack started pacing. He was hoping someone else would come up with an idea.

"Jack," Maddie spoke up from the conference table. She was resting her head on her arms on the table top. "If the Specter Speeder is out of service then we'll have to use the Bathysphere..."

"You mean the Fenton Ghost-O-Sphere?"

"Whatever..." Maddie sounded very sleepy. "Normally I'd go while you run the equipment from this end but the painkillers the doctor gave me are starting to kick in and I'm not sure how much longer I'll be awake. So you'll have to go..."

"Hot darn!"

"But I want you to take Jasmine with you..."

"Rats!"

"she'll be able to help y... just take her."

"But who'll watch the winch for the Ghost-O-Sphere?"

"Sam and Tucker can help we with that," Maddie said.

"Hey, we've got to go, too. Danny's our friend," Tucker insisted.

"no, no, no..."Maddie muttered. "What kind of parents would we be if we let someone;s children get into trouble?"

"But we've done it be-..."

"Tucker!" Sam whispered to him, "not helping."

"Mrs Fenton," Sam went on. We've been there before so we have a better idea of what's out there that Mr. Fenton or Jazz. That's why we should go along, too."

"No, no, no...Can't let you get hurt.," Maddie mumbled. "Normally Jack, I encourage you to travel light but this time I think you ought to stock up this time."

"Right!" Jack moved off to the weapons vault.

:OK, kids, while he's occupied. Jazz, sweetie, I want you to look after your father. He has a lot of enthusiasm but he needs someone to look after him. Sam, Tucker, you'll have to operate the winch for the bathysphere. They're over there. They're pretty simple. Up, down, communicator on, communicator off. Keep in touch with them. Do whatever you can to help them. And if you can, find me a pillow." Mrs. Fenton started to softly snore.

The Fenton Ghost-O-Sphere proved to be a six foot wide metall sphere attached to a long cable on a winch. A hatch on one side allowed access to the interior: cramped quarters filled with oxygen bottles, batteries and an assortment of electronic gadgets. A porthole on the other side let them see where they were.

The overhead crane carried the Ghost-O-Sphere over to the portal and set it on rack that would let it slide through the portal into the Ghost Zone. They anchored the winch and tested its operation. By then Jack and Jazz had returned, laden with equipment they might need on the voyage. Jazz had changed into a jumpsuit identical to her mothers, complete with pull-over helmet and goggles.

Tucker had a double-take before recognizing that it was Jazz. "What are you doing running around in your mother's clothes?"

"These are my clothes."

"But they look just like..."

"These are _my_ clothes. They're my ghost-fighting clothes. I find them very...uh... comfortable. Look are we going to rescue Danny or criticize how I look?"

"Here," Tucker thrust his PDA into Jazz's hand. We don't know where Skulker took Danny. Probably to his lair, where ever that might be. Since my PDA's linked to Danny's you should be able to home in on his with this."

Jasmine pocketed the PDA and climbed into the Ghost-O-Sphere after her father. The hatch was clamped close then the exploration vessel was slowly hoisted through the portal into the Ghost Zone.

Time stretched out before them as they slowly descended through the Ghost Zone, passed floating doors, torrents of strange energies, wailing monsters, and the occasional island with houses, ponds and trees. Jack kept up a running commentary to a recorder back in the Fenton Lab. Jazz watched the PDA for the smallest change in signal strength and directing the sphere after it. Gradually a large island floated into view. It seemed to extend over a hundred acres, covered with dense forests, the occasional glade and babbling brook. A rock outcropping near the brook was filled with a large building, low but with a high peaked roof, made of wood and covered with shingles. The PDA pointed right at the building.

"That's it, Dad," Jas said. Tha t's got to be where Skulker is keeping Danny."

Jazz maneuvered the vessel to a gentle landing on the isle.

They left the Ghost-o-sphere and walked up to the ramshackle lodge. It had a vaguely Norse look with long poles sticking out of the ridge of the roof, decorated with large, twisted, unearthly looking antlers. The front door as a massive two-door frame, easily eight feet high. Inside was a small vestibule the connected to a second pair of doors, these of a more normal proportion. A six inch long claw of some sort was mounted as a doorknob. Jack opened it and looked around before whispering to his daughter, "Stay behind me, Jazz, in case this Skulker ghost tried to jump us."

With a shrug of her shoulders she followed into the next room. It ran most the length of the lodge with the roof as it's ceiling. Massive logs acted as rafters. Split logs faced the walls and every bit of space on the walls was covered with the mounted heads of weird, exotic beasts from the Ghost Zone. No two heads looked exactly alike. Some were large, other small. Some had huge, ripping incisors, other had row after row of jagged teeth. Eyes came in threes, four, seven, rarely just two. Skins of all sorts were scatters across the floor like so many rugs. Jack, with his Spookalizer 2000 at the ready marched the length of the great hall. Jasmine followed, carefully picking her away around the various pelts, some of which did not seem entirely dead.

"That can't be good," Jack suddenly said, as they neared the far end of the room. A mammoth fireplace dominated the end wall, the mantle covered with an assortment of bleached skulls, but over the center of the mantle was a open spot on the wall, a space cleared for some forthcoming trophy. A placard had been mounted in anticipation. It read "Ghost Boy - Earth"

"Dad," Jasmine said with alarm, "let's find Danny and get out of here before something goes - Waugh!" a ghost ray smashed into her, knocking her against the stone wall of the fireplace.

"Who dares invade the house of Skulker, the greatest hunter in all the Ghost Zone" a booming voiced challenged. Skulker floated through the wall from a side room. He was large and armored, covered in banderoles and holsters. "Humans! They will be an amusing addition to my collection."

"Stand back ghost, or eat Fenton Fury," Jack ordered. When Skulker continued to advance, he fired. The first two shots went wild but the third hit Skulker square in the chest, sending the ghost hurtling to the far end of the great hall. "Jazz, are you all right?" he asked.

"I'll be alright. Look, Tucker's PDA is pointing down, there must be a basement."

"You mean the G.G.P.S. - The ghost global positioning system"

"Whatever. Come on, hurry, before Skulker recovers. I think I see a stairway over there." Jas lead the way to a small doorway which lead down some steep narrow stairs to a dungeon-like underground room. Despite the dust and mold, cobwebs and chittering, unseen insects the room proved to house several large, well-lighted work tables piled high with unfinished electronics. Jack wandered over and looked at some of the parts. "This would never work...but if it did, I imagine it would inspire fear in any ghost that faced it."

"Dad! We have to find Danny. I think he's over here."

"What, my little dumpling? I'll be right there." he paused to look at another piece of equipment, which suddenly snarled at him. He dropped it and dashed to catch up with Jazz.

Jasmine was pointing Tucker's PDA at a cube of glowing dark energy. Copper colored conduits traced the edges of the cube and lay in a grid on the sides. Facing her was a large heavy door with the kind of heavy handle one would find on a meat locker.

"Good work, Jazz," said her father as he reached for the handle. A bolt of electricity shot out and knocked him against a nearby table. "OK, plan B."

"Danny, " he hollered next to the box's door, "are you in there?"

After a moment there was a muffled "Dad? Dad! Is that you?"

"Yes, Danny, I've come to rescue you."

"Great...ah... where's mom?"

"She had an unfortunately accident this morning..."

"...You hit her in the face with your tennis racket."

"Uh..." Abashedly he continued, "...hit her in the face with the tennis racket. But I also had that volley, who knew she would be..."

"Dad!" Jasmine warned, "let's get Danny out of here. We can talk about your tennis game later."

"Jazz, are you there? Where's Sam and Tucker?"

"What! You think they're the only one's who can save your butt?"

"Language!"

"Sorry, Dad."

"So it's just you and Dad against the entire Ghost Zone," Danny called from inside the box. "Great."

"Do you want to be rescued or not?"

"Yes, yes. I'm sorry. Hurray. Who knows where Skulker is."

Jack had drawn on heavy rubber gauntlets but as his hand approached the handle another lightning bolt snapped out singeing his hand. Shaking off the sting, Jack said, "We'll have to cut off the power to that handle somehow. There must be a control box around here somewhere. Maybe this..." Next to the handle was a low, flat rectangle of the copper colored material.

"Now where did I put the Fenton Multi-Tool?" he mused as he sorted through a fanny pack clipped to his jumpsuit's belt. "The good ol' Fenton Multi-tool. It's a drill, a screwdriver, allen wrench, socket wrench, pry bar. I even used it once to mixed up a batch of fudge. mmmmmm. Though those did taste a bit like machine oil as I recall. I believe that's when your mother refused to let me put away the groceries any more."

As he was talking he had unscrewed the housing to the control panel and was looking inside. "Odd. This looks like a variation on the Fenton Ghost Deflector. Now why would a ghost use a ghost deflector to imprison a human in the Ghost Zone?"

"Maybe because," Danny answered desperately, "in the Ghost Zone people act like the ghost, being able to pass through walls, so he's need a Ghost Deflector to hold people in."

"No." Jack replied emphatically. "Ghosts and humans resonate on different frequencies. Even if humans acted like ghosts in the Ghost Zone you would need a separate resonator to contain both human and ghost. Ah. And here it is, a second resonator, just as I thought. Now to cut the power to the resonator and we'll get you out of there before you can say Encyclopedia Brittanica..."

"Dad! No! Wait!" Danny screamed as something Skulker had said finally made sense. "The door is booby-trapped!"

Jazz quickly pulled her father hand away from the wires leading to the resonators.

He blinked dully for a moment.

"Booby-trapped, you say. Well, let's see what's going on here." Jack Fenton pulled out a second gizmo that looked remarkably like a unbent paper clip. He began probing around in the control box with the two instruments.

"Jazz," Danny called, "is there any way we can get Mom on a two-way TV? I'd feel a lot better if Mom were in charge..."

Jack broke off wha the was doing with an angry grunt.

"Danny Ix-nay on the Mom - er, om-may, er. Look, Danny, Dad's here. He's all we've got so let's be supportive, OK?" She looked to see how her father was taken that and grabbed the flashlight from out of his mouth. "Let me hold this, Dad. Where do you want the light shined at?"

Inside the box Danny slip to the floor and put his head in his hands. He tried to remember the times when his father hadn't messed things up? There was the Fenton Portal which had started all this when it turned him half-ghost. There was the Fenton Fishing Rod which his father could never keep from getting tangled up. The Fenton Sandwich-Maker which tended to spew peanut butter at the user and not on the bread slices... There were the Father-Son picnics ruined when his father had mistaken a dust devil for a ghost or tried to invent a sure-fire way to win the three-legged race.

Sitting in a room filled with what appeared to be several boxes of ghost-T.N.T, waiting for his father to cut the wrong wire wasn't how he had expected to spend his final days. He tried changing from his ghost form back to his human form but the energies from the Specter Deflector walls were inhibiting the change. As much as he wanted to be rescued, he didn't want his father to see him as "the ghost boy." Anyway he looked at it, he was doomed.

"At this rate I'll never get to kiss Paulina," he mused. "Of course, that was sort of a lost cause even before I got stuck in here. Maybe I should look around for someone I might actually have a chance with, like Sam." Danny shuddered. He'd known Sam Manson since kindergarten. "That would be like kissing my sister." Yet he was still thinking about her when he heard his father grunt.

"Not only is the handle electrically charged, but it's locked into place with a solenoid. We would have to cut the power to the solenoid to open the door but if we do that the spring inside the solenoid would slam the piston against the detonator for all these explosives. We'll need to immobilize the solenoid while we dismantle the lock. Jas, I need a couple iron rods, lots of wire and a fifty amp rheostat. Look around this junk here and see if you can find any of that."

He got up and joined her looking for the parts he needed.

"Dad, how much more time do we have before Skulker recovers?" Jasmine asked.

"Hard to say, dumpling, but that Fenton Spookalizer packed a mean wallop. He's not going to be up and around for quite some time I think."

"Here's a couple metal plates, Dad. Do you think they'll work?"

"Hhhm. Cast iron. Perfect. And here's a draw full of bits of wire. We can string these together."

"Here's a whole spool over here, Dad."

"Even better. I'll start winding the electromagnets. You keep looking for that rheostat."

Jack sat down next to the cube containing Danny and started wrapping layers and layers of wire around the two metal plates.

"How are you doing in there, Dadnny." he asked

"I'm not going anywhere,"

"Ah, cheer up, son, we'll have you out of there in no time."

"How?"

"Simple. I'm making a pair of electromagnets which I'll place on either side of the solenoid in this control box. Once they're powered out they'll induce hysterises in the piston in the solenoid, causing it to swell up in the cylinder. That will keep the piston from moving once we cut the power to the handle and start to dismantle it."

"Hyster-whatsis? Dad? Are you sure this is going to work?'

"Of course, Danny. Nothing to it. Piece of cake."

"Have you ever done this before?"

"Well, not as such, but theoretically it should work without fail."

"Dad... I know you're a world famous ghost hunter and hold several major patents for your inventions...but you know you don't have a good track record with things the first time out. Look, Dad, uh," Danny paused for a long time, "Dad," he continued, "maybe you and Jazz ought to just pack up and go back to the real world. I'll be OK here, I'm sure. I- I - I don't want you and Jazz getting killed here because of me. What would Mom think?"

"She'd never forgive me for abandoning you here, Danny. Just as I'd never forgive myself for not trying everything I can to bring you home. We're a family Danny, and families don't give up on each other."

"I don't want you getting killed here." Danny insisted.

"I have no intention of dying today, son. And I have no intention of leaving you to the dubious mercy of some filthy ghost. Jazz! How's that rheostat coming along?"

Jasmine looked up from the table she was at. "I found some dimmer switches which might do but I don't think they're 50 amp switches."

"We'll wire them in parallel, then."

As Jazz carried an armload of the dimmer switches over to the black cube some swished through the air over her head. She swivelled to look but there was nothing to see. The room seemed somehow colder than it already was but everything seemed in order.

Jack Fenton quickly wired the dimmer switches to the electromagnets and to a length of heavy weight cord he'd found in the drawer of wire pieces. He stripped the end to get two bare wires which he jammed into what looked like an electrical outlet.

Working carefully with the dimmer switches he increased the power to the electromagnets. The smell of overheated electronics filled the air. Finally he nodded his head. "Keep an eye on this," he ordered Jaz and set to work loosening bolts on the latch to Danny's cage.

Jazz thought she heard a soft chuckle but couldn't see where it had come from.

"That should do it, Danny," Jack Fenton called out as the last bolt backed out of the latch and it fell with a clang to the floor. In an instant the black cube disappeared except for the copper colored conduit. Danny stood revealed in his black jumpsuit, white hair and weird, green eyes.

"The Ghost Boy!" His father cried out and reached for the hand blaster on his belt. "What have you done with my son! Tell me before I rip you from atom to atom!" Jack flashed the blaster in Danny's direction and pressed down on the trigger.

Jasmine looked from Danny to her father and back. Leaping to her feet she screamed, Eek, a ghost!" in what she hoped sounded like genuine fear. She threw herself on her father, knocking his arm away just as the blaster belched a murderous ray of ectoplasmic energy. It missed Danny by inches. Still he stood frozen in place.

"Run" Jas screamed. either at her father or Danny, it wasn't certain.

Danny shock off his paralysis and zoomed through the ceiling of the dungeon, then back down, behind a worktable where he finally changed back to his human form. He jumped up and run to where his father and sister were tumbled in a pile. "Dad! Dad!" he cried, "You saved me!" He threw his arms around his father's neck and hugged him.

There was a fizz and loud pop from the control panel as one of the dimmer switches expired in a flash of fire. A second was already smoking.

"That can't be good," Jack Fenton muttered, then grabbing his two children dived behind the nearest worktable as the remaining dimmer switched exploded one after the other. The last one's little pop was lost in the huge _BOOM_ as the pile of explosives were Danny's cage used to be detonated.

The top half of the table disappeared. Debris rained down from there as did bits of the rock ceiling. Jack sat up blinking. "We're alive!" he cried, drawing them into a deep hug.

"Hello!" Jazz called up from beneath the pile. "Armpit in the face, Danny. Let's all hug _after_ we get out of here!"

"I think not!" a deep voice behind them thundered. Skulker drifted out of an equipment locker, gun aimed at the three Fentons. "This has been an amusing hunt, but now it is over."

"A hunt? Danny questioned. "You kidnaped me for a hunt?"

Danny took a desperate gamble. Thrusting his father to one side, he dived behind another work table and charged into his ghost form. He soared through the table hurtling balls of ectoplasmic fire at the Ghost Hunter. Skulker laughed and, disdaining his gun, threw a ghost beam at Danny, catching him at such close range that he flew across the room, crashing into a wall and fell to a crumpled heap at its base.

Jack Fenton came out from behind the table with the hand-blaster, firing wildly. But while he hit more often than missed the hand-blaster was no equal to the Spookalize, which was buried under rubble near Danny cage, where Jack had left it to free his son. Skulker turned to Jack and fired his gun, which blew the portly human through a worktable and into a wall, which then crashed down on him.

"Compact, lipstick, comb, safety whistle...and not one of them with ghost fighting devices built into them. The one time I need all that crap mom keeps forcing on me, I don't have any of it." Jasmine was desperately searching through her purse for a weapon of any kind. As skulker came for her she blew loose foundation powder in his face and dived behind another table.

Danny stirred. He pulled himself up and flung himself at Skulker but he was so weak than the Ghost Hunter merely slapped him backhanded to the floor.

Skulker flew over and picked Danny up by his shirtfront. He laughed in the boy's face.

"Just kill me and get it over with," Danny groaned, "But leave my parents alone."

"But it's your parent I was after," Skulker replied. "Haven't you ever heard of a Judas Goat?" Skulker growled. "It's a goat that's staked out in tiger country to lure the beast in for what looks like an easy meal. You were my Judas Goat. I wasn't after your pathetic little head, though I have a place all prepared for it in my hall. I was after your mother! Maddie Fenton is the greatest ghost hunter the Earth has ever produced and that makes her the most desirable prize for me to bag.

But your father had to come along and make a mess of everything just as he does with everything he touches. Why she stays with him is a mystery I'll never understand.." He threw Danny to the floor. "Now, where's that girl? She has some of her mother's native ability. I'll at least get a good hunt out of this, chasing her down."

"Nobody," a weak but steely voice broke in. "Nobody, hurts my wife!" Jack Fenton pushed the rubble off and dragged himself to his feet. One eye was swelled shut. Blood oozed from cuts on his scalp into the other. His right arm hung limp and useless and he braced himself with his left to stay up. "I love that woman with a depth no ghost will ever bridge." While Jack Fenton lives no one lays a hand on her! Do you understand me!" Painfully Jack started to cross the room. "Mister you will rue the day you ever heard the name Fenton," Jack declared.

"Rue it?" Skulker laughed, "another couple feet and you'll be dead. Unable to protect your precious wife, or your daughter or your s— Arrrgh!"

Jack had opened his hand and revealed a small device, little more than loops of wire around a tuning fork mounted on a battery. A broken piece of quartz acted as a tuning circuit, oscillating the fork to a super-sonic pitch. A sonic sledge hammer struck Skulker throwing him back against the wall. Stones fall out of their mortar from the force of the impact. He tried to get up but oddly his body could not maintain form or control. Under the force of the sonic blast he melted into an unconscious pool of ectoplasmic goo.

"No one messes with my wife," Jack snarled, "No one!"

Danny was picking himself and quickly turned to his human form. "Dad!" he yelled and run across the room to support him. "Danny. You're all right. But where did that ghost boy get to? I wanted to give him a taste of the Fenton Sonic Salad Fork as well."

"Uh - I think he ran off. I don't see him anywhere."

"Dad?" Jazz was crawling from under a pile of broken crockery. Her clothes were torn and several scrapes were bleeding.

"Right here, pumpkin. As good as ever," Jack said cheerfully, before a leg spasm sent him crashing onto Danny.

"Danny, you're safe!"

"Yeah. Barely. Let's get out of here before Dad decides to do anything else heroic."

Jazz handled the Sonic Salad Fork while Danny maneuvered his father up the narrow stairs and out of the hunting lodge.

"Where's the Specter Speeder?" he asked.

"Dad needed some part from it. So we had to take the Ghost-o-sphere. It's going to be crowded in there. I hope you're wearing deodorant."

"Love you, too, sis."

A babble of voices greeted them as they dogged the hatch of the Ghost-o-sphere and signaled for it to be retracted. "Jack," Maddie cried out over Sam and Tucker's voices, "Are you all right?"

"Did someone get the number of that truck," Jack mumbled back. "I'd like to thank the Academy..."

"He's fine, Mom," Jasmine answered, "or will be as soon as we get him to the ER. And, uh, Mom, Dad was really great back there."

"Why of course, Sweetie."

"No, really, Mom. Dad was smart, and brave and never gave up."

"Of course, Sweetie."

"Mom! I'm serious. I never saw Dad act like that. He was..." words failed her.

Maddie cheery facade dropped for a moment. "I didn't marry an idiot." She scolded. And returning to her cheerful voice she added, "Your father just needs help focusing."


End file.
